"Three men in police uniform burst into his home in the al-Saydiya district and drove him away in a white car to an unknown destination."

Amman's embassy in Iraq was alerted to the capture when a Jordanian friend of al-Maharma contacted them.

Second captive

On Monday a Jordanian businessman was snatched from his Baghdad home by an unknown group demanding $250,000 for his release, his son said.

Samih, a son of 63-year-old Jamal Sadiq al-Salayma, said he had no other details about his father's captors other than that they were "negotiating a ransom with him and had reached agreement on the sum".

Seven Jordanians seized in July and accused of supporting US occupation forces in Iraq have been freed recently, two of them late on Monday.